


thicker than water.

by orphan_account



Category: Persona 5
Genre: ...if you squint, Character Study, Mental Health Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator, Violent Thoughts, shido is a piece of shit as always
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22354546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The dining room is as empty as it's ever been when his screen lights up, and he doesn't answer quickly enough to stop it from ringing.(In which Akechi Goro makes a mistake and gets a phone call.)
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Shido Masayoshi
Kudos: 33





	thicker than water.

**Author's Note:**

> oh yknow....... a vent fic  
> very edgy also please heed the warnings

He's a sore loser, that's for sure. Always has been, always will be.

Which is why he doesn't lose, even when he does. Even on the days when the very first ring of his phone makes him flinch, giving a harsh and hollow echo through his empty apartment: he doesn't lose. He knows how to keep calm, composed, solve the problem before it's noticed and slip his mistakes under the radar. Nevertheless, he can't do it instantly. Not always.  
He takes pride in always finishing the task given to him before the call comes. Before he can feel an ounce of impatience from the other side.  
Of course, he also executes his missions with tact; recognizes when he can't afford to act on impulse. His boss doesn't seem to be familiar with the concept, though, and more often than not he needs to waste valuable time weaving up excuses to please him.

It never takes more than three seconds for Akechi to answer, because it can't. Not when he's expecting it.

He started keeping his phone quiet and tight by his side a little over a year ago. He doesn't let it out of his sight. It's necessary for him to be on standby, he learned, because his line of work requests it so. Because if he isn't, he'll be stuck cleaning up the mess.

He also learned to use the waiting to his own benefit. Bracing himself, leveling his breathing, thinking up textbook responses to keep the torture curt and short. He knows when to be on high alert because the answer is always-- be it for praise, condemnation, a new target, he needs to expect it. He doesn't know how he'd react if he was caught off-guard, and he doesn't plan on finding out.

The dining room is as empty as it's ever been when his screen lights up, and he doesn't answer quickly enough to stop it from ringing.

Instead he's subjected to the echo, travelling from wall to hollow wall for one second too long, and it starts to sound like a laugh. Kicks down everything in its way until the room is a wide open space and Goro, himself, agoraphobic.

He doesn't quite realize that he picked up until he feels the phone in his palm, firm and anchoring against the tide the voice coming from the other side sends him into.

He's in a bad mood today. The results are vicious and instantly visible. Goro steadies himself through the cacophony of ranting, screaming, threats to his life and insults to his competence. He brought this upon himself, afterall.

You see, he lost. But he didn't.

There's an inarguable elation sparking up in him from getting such a rise out of someone he despises so much. It's how he licks his wounds after every sharp blow from the other side, comes back uninjured and ready for more. Not a single word that man is capable of spewing comes even close to affecting him, so Goro can only mock the effort internally. He is able to bend so much further than anyone can push him.

The first time it was this bad, he dug his nails into his forearm until he drew blood. When Shido hung up, he just kept going.

He doesn't tune out from the nerve-wracking, near-beastial show of power, glorified and wrapped under the guise of actually offering meaningful information. He can't afford to nurture self-preservation, especially not now.  
For the most part, it's because he can't miss a single word of what Shido is saying-- _I won't repeat myself,_ he says. _Am I making myself clear?_  
The rest is just self-hate.  
He wants to scream, maybe. Bark back at him whatever seventeen years worth of repressed wrath can concoct until his lungs give out, and then some.

When he tries to, his throat goes dry. A couple of seconds spared in the name of self-composure, and the voice that's coming from his own vocal cords becomes abhorrently foreign. Annoying. Scrapes at his very ears as he tries to reason with him. He already has a plan, as he always does. Unlike some people, he can actually salvage his own fuckups.

He makes out-- through the half-blind haze of trying not to chuck his phone to the ground and promptly kick and step on it until it's nothing but dust-- that he's been called to Shido's office. He complies.

Fifteen minutes later and he's in front of a mirror. As soon as possible, his _boss_ said. Croaked, shrieked, howled. Eitherway, his time is limited.

His clock is not his own, not anymore, he's given it up for something much more important.  
Kicking off the stones forming the base of the pyramid to get what's on the very top. It's normal, he read about it for a school project once.

God, he looks awful.

He's surprised that his reflection doesn't shatter the mirror in two-- battered and bruised from a failed assassination in a "palace whose owner he seems to have underestimated". Goro chased him down as he fled, every last shot landing just south of fatal. Watched him slip away to get backup, in mock helplessness. He wanted to test his own limits.  
He's getting too comfortable with it; the bleeding, the slashing. Shooting, getting shot. Whatever. He doesn't mind if it helps get the job done.

It doesn't matter if it stops feeling like what it really is. Which is why he secures an escape route and lets the shadows gang up on him.

He could have dodged the attacks and fled, really. Gotten away without a scrape. It hurts his ego a bit.  
But it's better than doing it to himself, and he's already competent enough at taking care of his own injuries. So it doesn't matter.

It doesn't fucking matter.

He doesn't dress himself up for the meeting, instead making damn sure he looks as tired as he is. He'd gauge an eye out for good measure, if he didn't need it.

Instead, on his merry way to another round of torment, he goes for layers upon layers-- it's snowing, so he can get away with pulling up the hood of his coat as protection from any curious eyes. Someone might see him like this, recognize him. Someone might get the wrong idea and think he's getting abused.

Heh. Abused.

He laughs at the thought, trudging his way onto public transport and snaking through alleyways.

He knocks on the door in rhythm, curtly, quietly. A signal they agreed on from the start.  
The answer comes loud and booming, but Goro doesn't flinch. He doesn't.  
When he enters, everything is the same shade of disgusting mahogany as when he left it and Shido Masayoshi is reclined, furious, looking at him like he's the liability of the two. Like Goro doesn't have so much blood on his hands that Shido would be just another to put on the pile. Figures.

"You look like shit," he greets, and Akechi can't blame him for it. _Of course I do,_ he wants to spit out, _you're the one who did this. This is because of you._

He makes a show of his entrance, crossing the hardwood floor to use the coat hanger before anything else. Rolls the sleeves of his plain white dress-shirt up before he sits, hands clasped in front of the table, showing off as much black and blue as he can. Prim and proper and bleeding.

The office is shockingly humble for a man of his status and ego, and Goro thinks that if he gets his flashiness from his mother, he might just double down on it.  
He stops that train of thought before it starts, because wondering what he has in common with his mother will inevitably make him wonder what he has in common with the man in front of him and the very thought is enough to make him hurl right then and there.

"I left no traces." Goro begins because Shido's face spells out _explain yourself,_ "The target will be out of your way by daylight, albeit one day late. I sincerely apologize for the delay."

A grimace. Of course there's a grimace, because Akechi wouldn't have been called down here if there wasn't one.

"There's no room for mistakes here," starts the spiel, poking and prodding around his ego to find a good spot to stab, "no room for someone who can't live up to expectations. Do you understand?"

A dull disgust settles in his gut and replaces any nervous nausea he might have felt. He thinks that he could have grined and beared with Shido's temper oh so gladly if it meant not having to weather whatever this is.

"Of course." He wonders if Shido ever did any of his dirty work himself. He imagines the man looming over a dead body with a gun in his hands and finds the sight fairly plausible.  
He imagines himself shooting a bullet straight through Shido's bald head and finds the sight absolutely thrilling.

And yet, acutely dissatisfying.

You see, there are fates worse than death. Many of them. He takes turns coming up with the next, picturing Shido in the former, and actually keeping track of what the man is telling him. If anything, it helps kill some time.

"I only keep competent people close to me, those who can do their job as asked. If they fail, I cast them overboard." The threat is sharp as steel, and Akechi remembers the last time he truly feared Shido.

Back then, sitting accross from him felt like being locked in a monastery overnight-- walls cold and wide and enormous, constructed with the sole purpose of making you feel like an ant in comparison to the morbid whirling murals.

He can't breathe.

Thankfully, his acting is impeccable and the meeting doesn't last as long as he feared it would. His voice nearly cracks as they share a formal goodbye and good riddance, and he prays to every god in the book that it went unnoticed. He'd never fall for such a cheap intimidation tactic, afterall.  
As for the injuries... if he had noticed them, he didn't say a word. Still, Goro bares his face and arms with an unspoken, stubborn accusation until he's headed out the door.

The only obstacle left is the way home and it flies by before he can notice. The gratuitous click of his apartment opening signals that he doesn't have to keep it together anymore.

The oncoming silence in contrast to the bustling city streets is maddening. Chucking his briefcase to the closest soft surface, he thinks of what to do next.  
He could eat. He could also crack his skull wide open against the floorboards and smear the blood on the outer side of his door. Wander Shibuya half-conscious and psychotic and get the police called on him. Find out whether or not his life decisions to this point count as "sacrifice".

But he isn't going to, because he doesn't lose. Even when he lets himself get beaten half to death by a shadow he could easily pummel just to feel something, chewed out the next day by the man haunting his nightmares, and left with a warning to his life as yet another incentive for his blooming and coiling paranoia, he doesn't lose.

He'll win.


End file.
